New lefty idea: Hey, let’s run John Mellencamp for Indiana Senate

posted at 9:24 pm on February 16, 2010 by Allahpundit

Music to my ears (no pun intended), not only because this tool is very far left at a moment when being very far left isn’t exactly a political asset but because it suggests Indiana lefties are already depressed at the prospect of Baron Hill or Brad Ellsworth as their nominee. Lo and behold, a Facebook campaign page is already up and running. My feeling about this is basically the same as my feeling about the trial balloon of Ed Schultz for senate in North Dakota: It’d be entertaining and a likely win for the GOP, so full speed ahead.

First of all, you can’t beat him for name recognition, especially now that he has settled on one.

He’s well-positioned to take advantage of the powerful but ill-defined populist atmosphere among voters. Both in the state and nationally, Mellencamp has generated a lot of goodwill with working people by virtue of his Farm Aid concerts, and he’s managed to retain working-class authenticity despite being a superstar.

As Daily Kos diarist jolculbe points out, he also doesn’t have a record to run from. With anti-incumbent sentiment running high, being a total outsider might be an advantage.

Finally, aside from his utter lack of experience, not the liability it once was, Mellencamp is tough to assail. His heartland street cred is so great that, despite his political leanings, John McCain made heavy use of Mellencamp’s catalog at campaign events before being asked to stop. The guy’s image is as American as it gets.

As American as it gets, eh? Go watch this classic snippet from a Charlie Rose interview Mellencamp did in 2007 explaining how we haven’t done nearly enough to engage in diplomacy with, er, Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Can’t wait for the campaign commercials.

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The true beauty of watching the moon bats full throttle embrace of “thinking outside of the box”, is waching them take it to the extreme and topple off the high shelf from whence that box is perched and go SPLAT!

Watching the Bayh debacle unfold over the last 24hrs, regardless of Charlie Cook or anyone else says, I’m moving IN in the locked-in Red column. If the Reps cant’ win on what traditionally is red turf anyways amidst this Dhim clusterfark, we’re all screwed no matter who sweeps in ’10 & ’12.

“I write a lot of songs that could be interpreted as big patriotic songs, but in reality they’re questioning the direction the country is going,” he said. “After every song in Boston, 20,000 people were going, ‘USA, USA.’ I thought, man. I almost asked them to stop, stop doing that. I don’t like it. I don’t like hearing that chant.”

But when Chevy pays you millions of dollars to use your ‘patriotic’ songs to sell trucks you are completely comfortable with that.

JammieWearingFool on February 16, 2010 at 9:31 PM
Biden’s brighter than Franken.

Lanceman on February 16, 2010 at 9:35 PM

Wisdom being the better part of valor, history is liittered with those that underestimate their opponent.

JCM? I haven’t a clue. Franken on the other is genuine Mensa caliber, he has employed Alinsky’s rule of ridicule and rendered is an art form. He is a malignant evil that is hard to match, he is eminently dangerous, and he should not be brushed aside lightly. Your disparagement reeks of whistling past the graveyard.

The best tactic to use against Franken is his own mercurial temper, some staffer needs to do some research, have a Sen push just the right button on the floor and cause a mini-Chernobyl on CSPAN.

The we can all watch him on The Daily Show & .
Lanceman on February 16, 2010 at 9:35 PM

I remember a long time ago that a comic joked about Mellencamp. The comic said first his name was John Cougar. Then he changed it to John Mellencamp. The comic said he would next change his name to John Camp Cougarmellen.

I’ll never forget this g bait ripping on Oliver North’s secretary(the good looking blond). It was like he was pissed that a good looking women could be a conservative. Wonder what he thinks of Fox News. Never understood why this Femm “rocker” was popular.

The point is, there’s nothing I can do about Franken. But like most deranged, dangerous lunatics like Franken and Grayson, they’ll be one-termers.
And if not for them, some other weasels would take their place inflicting damage and harm.

And just blike Chavez down in Vevezuela, that fantasize that one term being for life! ZTrust me, I am over-joyed by the renewed interest amongst the electorate of our founding principles, the victories in MA, VA & NJ, but we are a long ways from out of the woods yet.

The Progressives are a radicle vicious lot who whole heartedly embrace “the ends justify the means” mind set. The peeps are the heart of the “movement” most certainly are playing for keeps. My point is not to get over confident, stay alert, and prepare to face devious, intricate, countermeasures. Progressives are of the same cloth as Dzerzinsky, Beria & Stalin and have no shortage of “useful idiots” to employ in their cause.

Didn’t John Cougar Melonhead get into it with Bruce – the Strawboss – Springstien about which of them was the dumbest, back in the 80s? Yeah, real representatives of the working man. I say hand MN and IN over to the Russians or Iranians (or 1 to each).

It seems that for every vacant Senate or House seat the Republican candidates are fielding people who are veterans and/or successful businesspeople while the Democrats are fielding washed up, vapid leftist entertainers. (Ted Nugent and Jon Voigt notwithstanding)

We just have to hope that the members of the democrat base who are that way only because that’s the way their family has always been or because the are surrounded by it everywhere they live and are too busy or too complacent to become more educated about what is going on will look at these idiot entertainers that the democrat party seems so willing to throw in there. We can only hope it would raise the smallest alert in them that the demofascists don’t have any respect for our system, our history and above all the Constitution. The demofascists would nomionate a poodle if they thought it would win because their ultimate plan is too centralize all the power in the party and do away with our republic. I would also hope that those conservatives who still have a little of the “it could never happen here’ in their brains will realize that it will happen here as soon as the demofascists can pull it off.

IN ain’t MN. It gets cold here in the winter, but our brains don’t freeze by November like they do in some northern states.
We have a garage door company here locally that refers to Mellencamp as having been “invented” by Indiana. The idea of a state inventing someone is purely stupid and guarantees I would never do business with that company. The least they could have done was reference someone who doesn’t hate his country so much. Not a good reflection on a great state.

JCM? I haven’t a clue. Franken on the other is genuine Mensa caliber, he has employed Alinsky’s rule of ridicule and rendered is an art form. He is a malignant evil that is hard to match, he is eminently dangerous, and he should not be brushed aside lightly. Your disparagement reeks of whistling past the graveyard.

The best tactic to use against Franken is his own mercurial temper, some staffer needs to do some research, have a Sen push just the right button on the floor and cause a mini-Chernobyl on CSPAN.

Archimedes on February 16, 2010 at 10:26 PM

Got to agree with you on this completely. You can’t be stupid and come up and keep straight most of the BS he comes up with. (I mean he’s a master of saying something where the individual facts are true yet the big picture is completely false. That takes talent.) I also agree that his main weakness is his temper. I’ve said this before but all Coleman had to do was Allen his ass. Just have someone follow him around until he either exploded or said something racist or sexist. (Which is also why if Coleman did that he should have had a cute girl follow him around with the video camera. I doubt he’d be able to resist making some very disturbing remarks.)

Heck, all you have to do is open up one of Franken’s books, and you’ll find a trasure trove of racist, sexist, and other offensive remarks, right there in writing.

True but then he’d just claim it was satire taken out of context. However if you had him on tape campaigning saying something racist, sexist, or an absolute meltdown you could just show the footage in some ads. (A picture is worth a 1000 words so they say, how many words in 20 seconds of video worth?)